Duane Reade

The employees here are the worst. They were not even busy and had several cashiers hanging out and socializing, meanwhile a grandmother who was trying to redeem some Poland Spring bottles was waiting for 10 minutes. All she wanted to was help the environment but they continued to ignore her.
I will never go back again with the kind of customer service that this DR has.
Oh btw, a cashier had to leave her post because her boyfriend was probably calling. WTF IS THAT?!
F this place.

This might just be the worst Duane reade in all of New York, I don’t think I’ve ever waited in line less than 10mins

the pharmacist is real nice and quite knowledgeable there. the store is pretty cool located in an old bank building. yet, it can be cleaner and more organized. but overall, the staffs are very nice and helpful :) and they made it a good experience to visit. I enjoy going there and the neighborhood is awesome!

Big n easy. Thats how I like my drug stores… Ooh mmmmm yeah. Good sales, super great and helpful pharmacist, yes Heather Bickel you are awesome! And they have this line of organic skincare that I absolutely love and cant live wif outtie. Lastly, their frozen foods are worth trying and they have good toilet paper sales. Ya I went there. So now you know!

For quite some time now, I have noted how terrific the staff are at this Duane Reade. I have found the folks behind the sales counter to be really friendly and great. I have had the flu recently and have also found the pharmacists to be knowledgeable and friendly. Keep up the good work.

The first thing I want to say is that it is the nicest looking Duane Reade that I have ever been in. The architecture is beautiful! I think it is in a former Beaux Arts period bank building. So I love going inside. After that: It is very clean, well lit, logically and conveniently arranged, and the staff is polite. A big bonus is the pharmacist: She is very pleasant and very helpful and remembers her customers.

My personal goal is to visit every Duane Reade in NYC. Others may want to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro or swim the English Channel, but I think this is a more worthy goal.
Anywho, I was not a fan of this one. I love the old bank building but the store was grungy and not well stocked at all. They had zero bottles of plain seltzer in the drink cooler. I saw all the slots where it should be, because the signs were there, teasing me with their promise of «Canada Dry Seltzer» or even the store-​brand «De-​lish Seltzer» but I was stuck getting Cherry Pomegranate Seltzer. Can you imagine my outrage?
I know, my burden is pretty heavy. I made do, but I don’t think I’ll put this DR on my regular rotation. Luckily I don’t go downtown that much. It’s kind of a scary place.

Let me first clarify that this review excludes the pharmacy, as in the actual pharmacists. They are fantastic. However I find the support staff (non pharmacists) and other staff there excluding management to be consistently poor, untrained, and really could care less. I had an awesome example this morning. While picking up my pharmacy prescription, I also picked up 2 boxes of Kleenex under the buy 1 get one free listing. They rang up as buy one get one 50% off. I happened to notice it and mentioned it to my cashier. This is how it was handled.
1. Hi, I think these Kleenex are buy 1 get 1? 2. DR Cashier: Oh? Where did you get it? She ran around to check. Seeing the 6 signs for buy 1 get one.
[So I’m already feeling a little shy about bringing up something seemingly petty, but obviously wrong and easily correctable and hoping this thing will just be taken care of right? What ensures next is what inspires my time to write this out for your enjoyment and second hand embarrassment.]
3. DR Cashier: It says buy one get one free, but you didn’t read the fine print about unit price. That’s how they get you! (Declarative statement implying that Duane Reade purposely misrepresents pricing in a slinky way to «catch» us sniffle nosed victims in a buying scam. Boiling it down, I just don’t think she wanted to correct a computer mistake and do a refund, and instead took the bluff of explaining to me in such perfunctory way that I understood the meaning of «buy one get one free». I’ll go ahead and assume that her lack of desire to correct the system the underlying issue t here. Oh you will have closure on that one.
4. I love games. I also works in consumer products at Bristol Myers Squibb before I worked in fashion. I look at her in a daze and ask her what does unit price have to do with a BOGO? That’s simply the broken down per piece or weight to the selling price. She read it loudly to me agin saying; «I know, it’s hard for people to understand. I’ll get the manager. Maybe she can explain for you.» (I’m so entertained by this. I look forward to this.)
5. Manager comes out and I show her my receipt and the sign, and she immediately turns back to the cashier and says… what’s the problem? Refund the second one.
6: DR Cashier: Holds up her hands like she’s in a gunfight and says… if that what you want to do.
7: Manager says yes, that’s easy. Call it a refund. (Turns and walks away)
8. DR cashier: Presses buttons for a free minutes like the airline service counter scene in Meet the Fockers and finally asks for help. Asks me to sign a variety of screens. Finally refunds me $ 1, not the amount I was entitled to, and explains a little too confidently that I have to pay taxes when items are being returned to me. I don’t care about the error or money at this point. I’m just speechless and amused by the whole scene. Lesson learned. Don’t trust Duane Reade/​Walgreens pricing or staff. Unless the staff is trying to tell you about how the corporation is always trying to mis market to trick people! And confident, wrong people are the outright scariest.

This review isnt so much for the Duane Reade itself as to more of the experience I had last year. Now for the store, it’s always good to have all night convenience., It’s what happens at 2.30am that makes it extraordinary. Having to get some things for the travel bag after a long night of eating and drinking we drop in here.
As I get to the counter and pay, one of the attendants walks up to me with the night security guard in tow:
Attendant 1: «Do you like the Knicks?»
Me: «Sometimes»
Attendant 1: «Do you like Jeremey Lin? Do you have Linsanity?»
Me: «Im from California. That dude didn’t do jack shit for the Warriors»
Attendant 2: «Who do you like then?»
Me: «You have to go back. Im talking George Gervin, David Robinson»
Attendant 1: «You talkin bout the ICEMAN!?»
Security Guard: «and the ADMIRAL?!»
Attendant 2: «Oh maaan! You my N*GG*R!»
Uhhh. Now I’ve never had anyone call me the N word before, especially not from a black man that I had not met until two minutes prior. However, I take it as a HUGE compliment. I think the three of them figured I didn’t know much about basketball in which I then ended up controlling the conversation for about half an hour before my friend got tired. We talked overrated players, All Team Punk Ass, and many other scenarios were drawn up about the NBA. How thing were before money become the only thing players were interested in. Even the infamous scenario about Allen Iverson’s rant came up. This totally made my night in an unexpected way. You step into a boring Duane Reade one minute and come out utterly entertained the next.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -
«Its easy to talk about, its easy to sum it up when you just talk about practice. We sittin’ in here, I’m supposed to be the franchise player, and we in here talkin’ about practice. I mean listen, we talkin bout practice. Not a game, not a game, not a game. We talkin bout practice. Not a game, not a, not a, not the game that I go out there and die for, and play every game like its my last. Not the game. We talkin’ bout practice, man. I mean how silly is that? We talkin’ bout practice. I know I’m supposed to be there, I know I’m supposed to lead by example. I know that, and I’m not shovin’ it aside, you know, like it don’t mean anything. I know its important, I do. I honestly do. But we talkin’ bout practice, man. What are we talkin’ bout? Practice? We talkin’ bout practice man. We talk… We talkin’ bout practice. We talkin’ bout practice. We ain’t talkin’ bout the game, we talkin’ bout practice, man. When you come into the arena, and you see me play, you see me play, don’t you? You see me give everything I got, right? But we talkin’ bout practice right now. We talkin’ bout practice. (crowd laughs) Man look, I hear you, its funny to me too. I mean, its strange, its strange to me too. But we talkin’ bout practice man. We not even talkin’ bout the game, the actual game, when it matters. We talkin’ bout practice.»
–Allen Iverson

Love it here.
²⁴⁄₇ and yet always clean
Knowledgable and friendly pharmacy staff
Large (2 floors)
Convenient location (6 Spring, N/​R Prince, B/​D/​F/​M Bway-​Lafayette)
Chase ATM (to be fair, all DR’s have this feature)

These is my main Duane, here’s why:
PROS:
Chase ATM
HUGE selection of goods
24-​hours — 24 hours — 24 hours HELLO
Large make-​up counter
Big snack section
Fast pharmacy
Good for that, «I just need this one thing for my apartment…»
CONS:
Once in a while there are too few cashiers and customers get stuck for 10 minutes…

I am a big fan of Duane Reade. This one, not so much. The lines are ALWAYS so long without enough help… They do have everything you could ever think of though…

Shift leader Tiffany has no sense of urgency or customer service. I’ve never seen someone in NYC move so slowly and clearly not care at all. Total waste of payroll dollars when so many hard working NYers need jobs.

It’s a Duane Reade, but what a Duane Reade it is! MASSIVE with everything, I mean EVERYTHING, you could need.
Groceries — CHECK!
Live Make-​Up Consultant — CHECK!
24 hour Pharmacy — CHECK!
Chase ATM — CHECK!
Cards, Frames & More — CHECK! CHECK! CCCCHHHHEEECCCKKKK!!!
You get the picture.

24 Hour Pharmacy… really nice and spacious!
Took over the old Parasuco.
The first floor is practically all beauty stuff and this is the nicest Duane Reade I have ever been into.